The Center for the Documentation of Deportations, Expulsions and Resettlements – 10 Years of Finding and Renovating Polish Cemeteries in Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe

In the years 1942-1952, over twenty Polish settlements of about 20,000 people existed in East and South Africa. These settlers had survived Soviet deportations to Siberia and had left the Soviet Union in 1942 alongside the Polish Army under the command of Gen. Władysław Anders. The soldiers went to the front, but the civilian population was relocated to different parts of the world and put in refugee camps. Today, cemeteries and churches remain as vestiges of the Polish presence in Africa. Forgotten for many years, in some cases they fell into disrepair, sometimes even devastation.

Since 2009, the expeditions from the Pedagogical University have carried out searches and renovation projects of the Polish necropolis in East and South Africa. The movie From Tengeru to Rusape… (Od Tengeru do Rusape…), produced by the Center for the Documentation of Deportations, Expulsions and Resettlements, shows ten years of work on the cemeteries in Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.